Applications such as word processors, web browsers and electronic mail software sometimes provide toolbars that generally comprise a print icon. The print icon is provided for the benefit of the user to efficiently make printouts of data (e.g., an electronic form of a document). Because many computers are portable, the default printer may be altered as a user changes location at which they work, e.g., from home, at the office, or at a remote office location. The print icon works as intended most of the time unless, either by mistake or purposely, the default printer is set to a remote printer (e.g., a printer not easily accessible from where the print job was requested).
In this case, if a print request is initiated by a print icon, the printout could be sent to the remote printer without warning. Printing to a remote printer unintentionally could result in a waste of paper and in some cases, could release confidential information to the remote location, which may or may not be secure.
For example, if a manager prints out confidential information about employees to a remote printer by mistake, bonus information, salary information or performance reviews could be released to unauthorized personnel.
To avoid situations like this, users must be extremely careful about printer assignments or users could remove the print icon from the toolbar. This however does not address the unsuspecting user or users who are temporarily working on an unfamiliar machine. Neither does this solution cover users who do not intend to print, but accidentally select the print icon by mistake. Furthermore, removing the print icon from the toolbar may not be possible for some users with limited computer knowledge.